The Silver Rose (48 page)

Chapter One

Dover, England, 1591

It was the most extraordinary likeness.

Gareth Harcourt pushed his way to the front of the crowd watching the troupe of performers who had set up their makeshift stage on the quay of Dover harbor.

Her eyes were the same cerulean blue, her complexion the same thick cream, and her hair exactly the same shade of darkest brown, right down to the deep reddish glints caught by the sun. There the resemblance ended, however. For whereas Maude’s dark hair hung in a cloud of curls teased daily from curling papers and tongs, the acrobat’s crowning glory was cut in a short, straight, fringed bob that owed more to a pudding basin than the more sophisticated tools of feminine coiffure.

Gareth watched with enjoyment as the tiny figure performed on a very narrow beam resting on two poles at some considerable height from the ground. She was treating the six-inch width as if it was solid ground, turning cartwheels, walking on her hands, flipping backward in a dazzling series of maneuvers that drew gasps of appreciation from the audience.

Maude’s frame was similarly slender, Gareth reflected, but there was a difference. Maude was pale and thin and undeveloped. The acrobat, standing on her hands, her bright orange skirt falling over her head, revealed firm muscular calves encased for decency’s sake in skin-tight leather leggings, and he could see the strength in her arms as they supported her slight weight. She released one hand and waved merrily, before catching the beam again with both hands
and swinging sideways, tumbling over and over the beam, her hands changing position at lightning speed, her skirt a blur of orange as she turned herself into something resembling a Catherine wheel.

At the top of the arc, she flung herself backward, turned a neat somersault, landed on both feet, flipped backward, her body curved like a bow, then straightened, her skirt settling around her again as she swept into a triumphant bow.

Gareth found himself applauding with the rest. Her face was flushed with exertion, her eyes alight, beads of perspiration gathered on her broad forehead, her lips parted in a jubilant grin. She put two fingers to her mouth and whistled. The piercing sound produced out of nowhere a small monkey in a red jacket and a cap sporting a bright orange feather.

The creature dragged off his hat and jumped purposefully into the crowd of spectators, chattering in a manner that sounded vaguely obscene to Gareth, who tossed a silver penny into the out-thrust cap, receiving a simian salute in response.

The girl began to turn cartwheels as she waited for the monkey to return from his fee collection. Whether it was merely to encourage the crowd’s generosity or simply for her own pleasure, Gareth couldn’t decide. She radiated exuberance and energy, and when the monkey finally bounced back onto the makeshift stage, she tipped the contents of the hat into a leather pouch at her waist, blew a cheerful kiss to the crowd, crammed the cap back onto the animal’s head, and backflipped her way off the stage.

It was the most uncanny resemblance, Gareth thought again. In everything but personality, he amended. Maude had less energy than anyone he had ever come across. She spent her days lying on a cushioned settle reading religious tracts and applying smelling salts to her small and generally pink-tipped nose. When she could be persuaded to move, she wafted, trailing scarves and shawls, surrounded by a pungently medicinal aura from the endless remedies and
nerve tonics supplied by her old nurse. She spoke in a faint reedlike voice that had her listeners holding on with bated breath in case the reed should fade into muteness before the sentence was completed.

Gareth was, however, aware that his cousin, for all her apparent frailty, had a will of iron beneath her pallid exterior. Young Maude knew perfectly well how to turn her megrims to her own account, and what Maude didn’t know about emotional blackmail wasn’t worth knowing. It made her a worthy opponent for Imogen and Miles . . . if not for himself.

A trio of musicians had just taken the stage, with flute, hautboy, and lute, and he was about to turn away when he saw the girl again. She was sidling around from behind the musicians, something in her hand. The monkey was perched on her shoulder and seemed to be imparting news of grave importance into her ear.

Gareth paused. The girl’s air of mischief was irresistible. The musicians played a few notes to establish pitch, then settled into a lively jig. The monkey leaped from the girl’s shoulder and began to dance to the music. The crowd laughed and were soon tapping their feet and clapping in rhythm.

Gareth watched the girl unobtrusively position herself just below the musicians. She gazed up at them and put something to her mouth. It took him a minute to realize what it was. Then he grinned. The imp of Satan! She was sucking a lemon, her eyes fixed on the flautist. Gareth waited in almost dreadful fascination for what he knew was going to happen. The flute players’ notes began to dry up as his mouth puckered, his saliva dried, in response to the girl’s vigorous sucking of the lemon.

With a sudden bellow, the flautist leaped forward, catching the girl an almighty buffet across the ear. She fell sideways, promptly turning her fall into a cartwheel with all the expertise of a professional entertainer, so that the crowd laughed, believing the entire byplay to be part of the amusement
But when she fetched up at Gareth’s feet, righting herself neatly, she had tears in her eyes.

She rubbed her ringing ear ruefully with one hand and dashed the other across her eyes.

“Not quite quick enough,” Gareth observed.

She shook her head, giving him a rather watery grin. “I usually am. I can usually run rings around Bert, but I was distracted for a minute by Chip.”

“Chip?”

“My monkey.” She put her fingers to her mouth again and whistled. The monkey abandoned his dance and leaped onto her shoulder.

She had a most unusual voice, Gareth reflected, regarding her with frank interest as she continued to stand beside him, critically watching a group of jugglers who had joined the musicians. It was an amazingly deep voice to emerge from such a dainty frame and had a lovely melodious ripple to it that he found very appealing. She spoke English with a slight accent, so faint as to be difficult to identify.

The monkey suddenly began a frantic dance on her shoulder, jabbering all the while like some demented Bedlamite, pointing with a scrawny finger toward the stage.

“Oh, sweet lord, I knew I should have made myself scarce,” the girl muttered as an exceedingly large woman hove into view. She was wearing a gown of an astonishing bright puce shot through with scarlet thread; her head seemed to ride atop a massive cartwheel ruff; the whole was crowned with a wide velvet hat tied beneath several chins with silk ribbons, gold plumes fluttering gaily in the sea breeze.

“Miranda!” The voice emanating from this spectacle suited the grandeur of its appearance. It was a massive, heavily accented, throaty bellow that was promptly repeated.
“Miranda!”

“Ohhhh, lord,” the girl muttered again in a long-drawn-out, sibilant moan. The monkey took off, still chattering, and the girl dodged behind Gareth. She whispered urgently,
“You would do me the most amazing service, milord, if you would just stand perfectly still until she’s gone past.”

Gareth was hard pressed to keep a straight face but obligingly remained still, then he inhaled sharply as he felt a warm body slip inside his cloak behind him and plaster itself against his back. It was as if he had grown a corporeal shadow, thin enough to cause barely a ripple in the folds of his scarlet silk cloak, but substantial enough to make his skin lift in a sensual ripple.

The monkey leaped in front of the large woman and began to dance and jabber in a manner radiating insult and challenge. The woman bellowed again and raised a fist the size of a ham hock, wrapped around a very knotty stick. Chip laughed at her, showing yellow teeth and sparkling eyes, then plunged into the crowd; the woman followed, still bellowing, still flourishing her stick.

Her chances of catching the monkey were so remote as to be laughable, Gareth reflected, but Chip had clearly achieved his object in drawing her away from his mistress.

“My thanks, milord.” The girl slithered out from his cloak. “I have no desire to be caught by Mama Gertrude at the moment. She’s the sweetest person in the world, but she’s absolutely determined I shall become her son’s partner in the end. Luke is a dear, but he’s quite daft at everything but managing Fred, I couldn’t possible marry him, let alone share an act with him.”

She offered a sunny smile, expressing absolute confidence that now everything was explained to her savior. “I do thank you most sincerely for the loan of your cloak. You’ve spared me a thoroughly tedious half an hour.”

“I’m delighted to be of assistance,” Gareth murmured dryly, none the wiser for her explanation. Neither could he understand why he’d found the proximity of such a dab of a creature so unnervingly sensual, but the skin of his back was still humming like a timing fork.

Later, Gareth once again encounters the charming Miranda . . .

Miranda, a gibbering Chip clinging to her neck, dived into a narrow gap between two houses. It was so small a space that, as slight as she was, she had to stand sideways, pressed between the two walls, barely able to breathe. Judging by the cesspit stench, the space was used as a dump for household garbage and human waste and she found it easier to hold her breath anyway.

Chip babbled in soft distress, his scrawny little arms around her neck, his small body shivering with fear. She stroked his head and neck even while silently cursing his passion for small shiny objects. He hadn’t intended to steal the woman’s comb, but no one had given her a chance to explain. Chip, fascinated by the silver glinting in the sunlight, had settled on the woman’s shoulder, sending her into a paroxysm of panic. He’d tried to reassure her with his interested chatter as he’d attempted to withdraw the comb from her elaborate coiffure. He’d only wanted to examine it more closely, but how to tell that to a hysterical burgher’s wife with prehensile fingers picking through her hair as if searching for lice?

Miranda had rushed forward to take the monkey away, and immediately the excitable crowd had decided that she and the animal were in cahoots. Miranda, from a working lifetime’s familiarity with the various moods of a crowd, had judged discretion to be the better part of valor in this case and had fled, letting loose the entire pack upon her heels.

The baying pack now hurtled in full cry past her hiding place. Chip shivered more violently and babbled his fear softly into her ear. “Shhh.” She held him more tightly, waiting until the thudding feet had faded into the distance before sliding out of the narrow space.

“I doubt they’ll give up so easily.”

She looked up with a start of alarm and saw the gentleman from the quay walking toward her, his scarlet silk cloak billowing behind him. She hadn’t paid much attention to
his appearance earlier, having merely absorbed the richness of garments that marked him as a nobleman. Now she examined him with rather more care. The silver doublet, black and gold velvet britches, gold stockings, and silk cloak indicated a gentleman of considerable substance, as did the rings on his fingers and the silver buckles on his shoes. He wore his black hair curled and cut close to his head and his face was unfashionably clean shaven.

Lazy brown eyes beneath hooded lids regarded her with a glint of amusement and he was smiling slightly, but Miranda couldn’t decide whether he was smiling
at
her or
with
her. However, the smile allowed her to see that his mouth was wide and his teeth exceptionally strong and white.

Her own smile was somewhat uncertain. “We didn’t steal anything, milord.”

“No?” A slender arched black eyebrow lifted.

“No,” she stated, flushing. “I am not a thief and neither is Chip. He’s just attracted to things that glitter and he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t take a closer look.”

“Ah.” Gareth nodded his understanding. “And I suppose some poor soul objected to the close examination of a monkey?”